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Worst state of youth mental health;
Worst obesity rates amongst youth (and probably adults);
Worst unemployment;
Worst taxes;
Worst cost of milk;
Worst practical cost of living;
Worst salaries;
But it’s so pretty here. —Worse worst
This article appears in Oct 9-15, 2014.
25 Comments
In your opinion…
yes, it’s pretty here
best beaches
best manners in grocery stores aisles
best malls to find a parking spot on Christmas eve
best bang for your buck waterfront property
best place for a teenager to gain independence
best fresh air to hang laundry
best outdoors to find exciting and scenic trails
best bus passenger behaviour
quality of life is not just about how many starbucks you can afford to suck back everyday.
I could also add
best place for a CFA teenager to get a job (two actually!)
best place for a CFA 30 year old to get a job without knowing a damn soul
best place for an CFA old person to get a job without knowing a damn soul
best place to get fast friendly service at a govt access location
best place to find an honest car service guy
best place to cut your own Christmas tree
because how successful you are and how happy you are with your own situation depends on what you want, value and your own attitude. this is not Pollyanna shit, it’s taking charge of your own fate instead of moaning and rolling about in a smelly quilt.
POINT – COUNTERPOINT
“Happiness is like coke – something you get as a by-product in the process of making something else.” Aldous Huxley, “Point-Counterpoint”
While famous for his fictional “Brave New World” and to a lesser degree, his didactic “Point-Counterpoint” where, like Orwell’s “1984,” he predicted the totalitarian drive implicit in the “scientifization” of contemporary culture, Huxley’s real metier was the essay, at least until he became an irrational humbug in California under the spell of lSD.
However, the reference to “coke” nothwithanding – he meant in the old-fashioned sense of a by-product in the production of steel – his take on happiness is bang on. Indeed, happiness is not some euphoric psychological steady-state but rather the by-product of creative activity, something similar to that in which I am now engaged.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
Arbitrarily nebulous category of “1Percenters” now updated to include:
the sane,
the fit,
the employed,
those who benefit from government services,
the lactose intolerant,
those who live within their means,
those with moderate goals,
and – the sighted.
I heur dat, OB. The youth mental health system is almost as bad as the adult system in which you are kept against your will and drugged in solitary confinement in a fascist torture chamber indefinitely. The reason everyone is obese is because they are all on psych meds which make you gain tons of weight. Zyprexa, Lithium, alla dat shit ruins your life and demotivates you into a vegetable. Nobody can work like that. No wonder everyone is unemployed. Forget the milk, that toxic beverage is full of cow pus and hormones. The employers are cheaper than dirt. They interview you and make you buy new suits and trapse all over town for second interviews and then don’t even bother to call you and let you know you ain’t got da job. My slumlord keeps raising the rent, it now costs me 850 bucks to live in a 4×6 shoebox. Molly makes a good point, to take charge of your own fate instead of moaning and rolling about in a smelly quilt – but OB is seeing reality for what it is. You gotta stay positive and fight the powers, tho OB. Fight the powers dat be. Rise above da bullshit. Don’t settle for mediocrity which Ivan suggests, to live within means and have moderate goals. How awful. My goals are lofty. The further you reach, the further you get in life.
I disagree with Bad dog Molly. The general manager of 2 side by side dealerships told me recently that expecting my 2009 car to be safe less than 6 months after I bought it was too much of an expectation. He then told me that if I didnt want my car to have problems I should have bought a new one.
I have however seen some people in the car business being honnest in the HRM. But to say that here is the best place to find an honnest one would tell me that you haven’t had a car for very long and you haven’t traveled much.
Also try the place that has a red and green logo and go for one problem. I guarantee that they will find more and some made-up problems as well. I went there once for one problem and on top of finding other problems they told me that my blinker was out and needed to be changed. I said don’t worry i’ll do it myself. When I took possession of my car the blinker was working perfectly fine and it did until I got rid of the car a year later.
you mean you have had a bad experience and that means that all car dealerships are bad? have you ever had slow service at a fast food place? does that mean all are slow? have you ever had a good experience with something and then considered all those services are perfect?
do you see what all this is? its personal JUDGEMENTS based on one’s own experience. op says nova scotia sucks because he/she is basically unhappy in life. molly says nova scotia is a joy because molly is pretty damn happy with life here (i have lived in many other places)
life is what YOU make it.
I can’t understand why – if there is 57,510,000 square miles of land surface on Earth and you don’t like being here – why the fuck are you here?
^^ because people like to moan. some people set up unrealistic goals, have insane expectations, find fault with everything because they want to be victims. it’s too daunting to take control, far easier to get carried away by ‘the universe against me’.
I believe in the theory that we all have a natural set point for happiness when we are born due to our inherent brain chemistry. The naturally happy may get knocked down in life but always find a way to get back to being contented. The naturally unhappy types may be uplifted briefly by positive events but always drift back to being a malcontent. It doesn’t matter where they live or what their situation they will find things to complain about.
If one looses the genetic lottery and is predisposed to unhappiness it’s up to to that person to make life better for themselves…Not unlike someone who is born into a family of alcoholics,they know chances are better they might become an alcoholic so they don’t drink it.
so is there any hope for the genetically unhappy? is it out of their control? out of their responsibility then?
Just my observation of course, but: some people seem to be blessed with a perpetually happy-go-lucky disposition; some people are perpetual malcontents (and seem to be prone to depression); and most people (myself included) are somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. If that is true then most of us do have a high level of control/responsibility for our own hapiness.
I’d much rather spend time with my acquaintances who are on the sunny side of things. I feel bad for them but the downers are very draining.
not only is it draining to be with a person whose down all the time it’s very draining to be a person whose down all the time…it’s difficult to get get that funk out of your head when it’s been there for years (or a life time) ….my belief is having a bad outlook on life can be addictive(as i already alluded to in last comment) especially if there’s addiction in your family tree,also i think how stressed the mother was feeling during pregnancy plays a role.
This place is bullshit…
nothing interesting to do here at all.
Then again, at least we’re not getting smothered to death by camels so…
there’s that going for it I guess.
Is anyone keeping you hostage here?
Halifax is a university town there’s always the chance of being smothered by camel toes downtown on a weekend night..
zed, what would be ‘interesting’?
^The Grave! *dramatic sigh*
hand to forehead ALAS!
I still say Huxley had it right!
I agree with montrealman. Huxley is bang on. Trying to be happy is a fool’s errand. It’s best to find things that are personally rewarding whether it’s something creative, volunteering, or whatever floats your boat. Hapiness will be a bi-product of that.
I’m with the original poster on this one. In Nova Scotia, it’s awful when one has to eke out a living when burdened with material poverty and physical/mental ill health. It reminds me of another place with the same problem. It’s called “Everywhere Else On Earth.”
its so pretty here? this place looks like cottage country Ontario, and northern quebec….only shitty and grey and rainy and full of two faced “friendliest” people. 300+ years people have been living here and its still as shitty as when they first landed 😀
put it this way….
have a look at our list of ‘attractions’.
http://www.novascotia.com/see-do/attractio…
pathetic.